All season long, thanks to a series of injuries, the Ottawa Redblacks have been forced to juggle players on and off the offensive line.

Nolan MacMillan, out earlier this season with a broken wrist, is the latest O-line concern. He suffered an arm injury in a 33-20 loss Friday to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a game where the Redblacks rested many starters.

With a bye this weekend while they await the winner of Sunday’s Edmonton-Hamilton game, it’s business as usual for the Redblacks, who are focusing on fixing themselves as opposed to worrying about what the Nov. 20 CFL East Division final at TD Place will bring.

They probably won’t know until next week whether they have MacMillan or SirVincent Rogers (the best lineman in the CFL a year ago) in the lineup for a game that will decide which team from the East plays in the Nov. 27 Grey Cup.

“I have plenty of time, it’s early, we’ll see,” MacMillan said after Tuesday morning’s hour-long practice at TD Place. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. That’s the way this game is at the end of the season. But I’m cautiously optimistic.”

There is also the chance, though it still seems unlikely, the team gets an early return from Rogers, who missed the latter part of the season with an ankle injury that was supposed to sideline him for the remainder of 2016.

“It’s healing well,” Rogers said. “But if we played Friday, I couldn’t play. I’d say I’m between 50 and 60%. I’ve played games at probably 70% healthy, maybe a bit less, in this league. If I can get to the point where I can manage it, not be thinking about it and functioning and doing the things I normally do … then I’m going to go. I’m going to try and get to that point.”

“We’ll revisit it early next week,” Redblacks GM Marcel Desjardins said. “It’s obviously something he wants to do, but we have to be smart about it, too. Would we rather have SV in there? Absolutely.”

Many of the players who were given the night off Friday — including kicker Chris Milo — were back on the field on Tuesday.

“We had a week to rest, I got some treatment and I’m good to go now,” defensive end Zack Evans said. “It’s a chance to knock the rust off, get as healthy as you can get and then it’s, ‘Let’s go.’

“It’s nice to know you’ve already booked your ticket to the final. I’ve seen teams in this situation do well and others do poorly. I think we’re a team which will do well off it and it’ll help us in the long run.”

BROCK A FIT WITH ALS?

After parting ways with Jim Popp on Monday, the Montreal Alouettes have an opening at GM. Would Redblacks assistant GM Brock Sunderland, who got his CFL start in Montreal, be a good fit? Desjardins said he hasn’t been contacted by anyone asking permission to speak to Sunderland, who interviewed for the Saskatchewan GM job (which went to Chris Jones) last December.

Said Desjardins: “We’re not worried about it, (Sunderland’s) the first one to say we have to take care of our own business right now. If and when somebody reaches out, we’ll deal with it at that time.”

Many of the Redblacks got their start under Popp with the Alouettes.

Said Desjardins: “He hired me, he hired Brock, he hired (director of football administration) Jeremy Snyder, (equipment manager) RJ James (video co-ordinator) Colin Farquarson — there are a lot of people here that had their roots in Montreal.

“There are a lot of things I’m aware of (in Montreal) that maybe a lot of people aren’t, some of the decisions that have been made over the course of the past five or six years and it’s not all on the GM. But at the end of the day, that’s the person that’s responsible. I’m sure Jim will land on his feet somewhere in the near future.”

ALL ABOUT THE REDBLACKS

Linebacker Tank Reed says it doesn’t matter — Hamilton or Edmonton — his team is going to be ready.

“I’ve been in this situation before … like a lot of people in this locker room,” he said. “The great thing about winning the division and getting the first-round bye is if you win one game, you’re in the Big Dance, you’re in the Grey Cup.”

“We have a whole group of leaders who understand these opportunities don’t come along every day where you can finish in first and be 60 minutes away from the Grey Cup,” coach Rick Campbell said.

So what is the team working on this week in practice?

Said Reed: “You can get back to fundamentals. This week is good for us, we don’t know who we’re playing yet so it’s all about the Ottawa Redblacks.”

Said Campbell: “We want to make sure we’re staying on point, we didn’t want anybody leaving town. This week is about us. We’re identifying things we want to work on — offence, defence and special teams — that’s what the meetings and these practices are about. We’ll worry about who are opponent is next week.”

OPEN DOORS

With other CFL teams closing practices, Desjardins said it isn’t something the Redblacks are looking at.

Said Desjardins: “How do you close it? (Do teams spy?) Of course. Do I worry about it? Why worry about it? You can’t close practice. The only way you can do that is if you go indoors somewhere, then you don’t have a full field.”

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